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egime, increasing surveillance of the internet, andexploitation by capitalist imperialism, sexism andracism. 26 Building a policy-to-action cycle that embracesall of the quadrants and is mindful of the culturaland traditional norms that mediate the internetis an important new terrain for challenging patriarchyand privilege by asserting claims for women’s rightsand the rights of all groups that are excluded from thebenefits of development.ConclusionStrengthening capacity to use and govern the internetfor advancing human rights and weakeningits potential to exacerbate inequality and abusewill require what women’s movements have longbrought to other complex phenomena: the powerof feminist analysis and reframing concepts so thatthey can be transformed into policies; the powerof information dissemination and awareness raisingto build constituencies; the power of collectivevoice and organising to face down injustice and exploitationand to model new types of interactionsand relationships.In a 2011 article for the Association for Women’sRights in Development (AWID), 27 Jenny Radloff rightlyurged that “we need to take control of [information]technologies, deploy them creatively and infuse ourtechnology practice with feminist principles in order toenhance and deepen our movement building.” At thesame time, we need to inspire women’s movementsto challenge gender-discriminatory policies and practicesthat characterise the internet and ensure that theradical potential of this terrain to promote and protectwomen’s rights can be enjoyed by all. ■26 Gurumurthy (2004) Op. cit.27 www.awid.org/News-Analysis/Friday-Files/ICTs-A-double-edgedsword-for-Women-Human-Rights-Defenders14 / Global Information Society Watch

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